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WIP

I have been working on a couple of knives for a while now. The yanagi was a similar blade to the blade in my refurb blog http://***********************/2010/11...irst-blog.html and it was in pretty bad shape when I got it. Due to me being on vacation it has been a bit on and off, but here are finally some pictures from the project.

Outlining the sayas

Carving wood that is not straight grain is a real PITA

Clamping the pieces together to test progress on the fit of the saya. No glueing with the knife in the block!

Here you can see the finished handles and sayas. Both sayas are made of the same thin lumber curly maple board. I have used a set of spirit based wood dyes to colour match the sayas to the handles. It took a bit of fiddling and testing on blank pieces of wood, but I hope I mananged to match them fairly well. The Koa was the most tricky wood to color match. I also used a more burly piece for the sakimaru with burly handle and a wavy piece for the yanagi with the curly handle.

I really love the musk ox horn on this handle. I think it works great with the wood in the handle.

I have fixed all overgrinding issues on the yanagi, straightening the blade, recovering the shinogi line, lengthened the heel and polished the choil and spine, polished the face and fingerstone polished the blade road, and sharpened the blade on JNATs finishing the edges on a very fine size #24 Atagoyama kiita from Hide. I have given both blades a very light hamaguriba to increase the strength of the edge.

I was lucky to see both last night. And I cant hide that I love the sakimaru with the musk ox the most.
Musk Ox Ferrule is probably the most impressive ferrule you can have. I know Darkhoek might have some more ferrules for those who order a handle from him first. I have one, but have ordered a second!

The handles are really really great. I love his handles.
Lefty: Go for a musk ox ferruled handle from Darkhoek

Great job matching the color of the sayas to the handles. That musk ox horn gives a fantastic effect with the underlying wood.

Rick

That's one of the things I love the most about the musk. It takes up the colour from the underlying material and "auto match" to it. Great feature for a material.
It is also very nice to work with, doesn't crack or shrink, polishes well and looks spectacular. Only down side...$$$$$$ It's insanely costly.